The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point | Page 6

boy! You bad boy!" wailed the little girl, making a dash for Paul, who deftly evaded her and took refuge behind Betty's chair, "Div me dos tandies--dive 'em to me."
"Can't," mumbled Paul, his mouth full, adding by way of explanation a convincing: "All gone."
"Paul Billette, come here this minute," commanded Mollie sternly, while Betty and Amy tried hard to check their rising mirth and Grace looked bereft. "Come here I say."
"Make Dodo go 'way then," bargained Paul, adding in an explanatory tone: "Last time she pulled my hair."
"An' me's goin' do it 'dain," declared Dodo vengefully, when Betty reached over suddenly and pulled the little girl into her lap.
"Stay here a minute, Honey," she coaxed, and as Dodo tried vainly to wriggle loose added: "Sister wants to speak to Paul."
"An' I," said Dodo soberly, "want to pull his hair."
Again the girls had to strangle their mirth while Mollie reiterated her command to Paul. The latter, after regarding the wriggling Dodo for a minute uncertainly, reluctantly left his refuge and stood before Mollie, head hanging.
"I'se sorry," he said in a small voice, trying to forestall the scolding he knew was coming. "Me never do it any more!"
"That," said Mollie sternly, though the corners of her mouth twitched and there was a twinkle in her eye, "is just exactly what you say every time you're a bad naughty boy. Now, just to make you remember how naughty you were, you shan't have another piece of candy for a whole week."
Paul's protest was drowned in a wail from Dora.
"But me wants some tandies," she cried. "Me didn't take any."
"She would, if Paul hadn't seem them first," murmured Grace, but Mollie shot her a warning glance.
"No," she said, "and just for being such a good girl, sister's going to give you six big chocolates all for yourself."
Dodo gave a shout of glee and disengaging herself with one last frantic wriggle from Betty's embrace, precipitated herself upon Mollie like a young cyclone.
"Ooh dive 'em to me, dive 'em to me quick," she demanded, then as Mollie made good her promise the little girl turned upon the erring Paul a look of conscious virtue and said gravely; "If you were a dood boy I would div you one, but now me's goin' eat 'em up, every one till dey's all gone."
Then she took to her heels, scurrying down the steps and around the corner of the house with Paul in hot pursuit.
"Dodo," they heard him crying plaintively, "I'll let you play wiv my best bunny if you will div me one candy, just one--"
"I wouldn't give much for his chances," chuckled Mollie, adding with a sigh that was a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "Aren't they perfectly terrible? There isn't a minute of the day when they're not in some mischief."
"No, they're adorable," cried Betty fondly. "I wouldn't give two cents for children that didn't get into mischief all the time."
"I don't care so much about the mischief," said Grace, eyeing her empty chocolate box ruefully, "if they would only leave my candies alone."
"Never mind, Gracie," replied Mollie, laughing at her, "you shall have a whole box of mine, so you shall."
"Fine," agreed Grace, adding with a chuckle as Mollie handed over the almost full box: "Since my candies were more than half gone, I don't call it such a bad bargain at that."
"I'll say it wasn't," dimpled Betty.
"Just the same," said Mollie, after a little pause, "even though the twins are a great deal of trouble, Mother said she just wouldn't have known what to do without them--especially after I went to Camp Liberty--the house would have been so frightfully dull."
"I should think so," said Grace, adding suddenly, as though she had thought of it for the first time: "Why she would have been all alone, wouldn't she? How awful!" For Mollie had no father, he having died several years before.
"And the other day she said the strangest thing," Mollie continued, suddenly earnest. "You know how she adores Paul. Well, I caught her looking at him with the most wistful expression, and when I asked her what the matter was she looked up at me and I saw there were tears in her eyes.
"'It's Paul,' she said softly. 'Of course I'm thankful he is so little that I can keep him safe at home with me, but sometimes when I think of my dear country and the terrible wrongs she has suffered, I almost wish that my little son were old enough to bring retribution upon those hideous Germans. Sometimes I feel cheated--yes, you needn't stare--that I have not a son "over there".'"
"Oh, Mollie!" cried the Little Captain softly, "what a wonderful thing to say. And yet I think she would die if anything happened to either of the twins."
"That's just it," said Mollie, her